application, without his being able to express his idea to his own satisfaction, though he was sufficiently pleased with all the rest of the work. He endeavoured to represent the dog panting, and with his mouth foaming as after a long chace; and employed all the skill he was capable of exerting on that occasion, without being able to content himself. Art, in his opinion, was more visible than it ought to have been; a mere resemblance would not suffice, and almost nothing but reality itself would satisfy him. He was desirous that the foam should not seem painted, but actually flowing out of the mouth of the dog. He frequently retouched it, and suffered a degree of torture from his anxiety to express those simple traces of nature, of which he had formed the ideas in his mind. All his attempts were, however, ineffectual, till at last, in a violent emotion of rage and despair, he darted at the picture the very sponge with which he used to wipe out his colours, and chance accomplished that which art had not been able to effect.

This painter is censured for being too difficult to be pleased, and for retouching his pictures too frequently. It is certain that, though Apelles a almost regarded him as his master, and allowed him a number of excellent qualities, yet he condemned in him the defect of not being able to quit the pencil, and finish his works; a defect highly pernicious in eloquence, as well as painting. "We ought," says Cicero, "to know how far we should go: and Apelles justly censur"ed some painters for not knowing when to have done.”

SECT. IX.

Expedition of Seleucus. Cassander compelled to raise the siege of Athens. Antigonus slain.

The farther we advance into the history of Alexander's successors, the more easily may we discover the spirit by which they were constantly actuated hitherto, and by which they will still appear to be influenced. They at first concealed their real dispositions, by nominating children or persons of weak capacities to the regal dignity, in order to disguise their own ambitious views but, as soon as all the family of Alexander was destroyed, they threw off the mask, and discovered themselves in their proper colours, and such as, in reality, they had always been. They were all equally solicitous to support themselves in their several governments;

a Et aliam gloriam usurpavit Apelles, cum Protogenis opus immensi laboris ac curæ supra modum anxiæ miraretur. Dixit enim omnia sibi cum illo paria esse, aut illi meliora, sed uno se præstare, quod manum ille de tabula nescires tollere: memorabili præcepto, nocere sæpe nimiam diligentiam flin. ibid b In omnibus rebus videndum est quatenus In quo Apelles pictores quoque eos peccare dicebat, qui non sentirent quid esset satis. Orat. n. 73.

to become entirely independent; to assume an absolute sovereignty; and enlarge the limits of their provinces and kingdoms, at the expense of those other governors who were weaker or less successful than themselves. For this purpose, they employed the force of their arms, and entered into alliances, which they were always ready to violate, when they could derive more advantages from others; and they renewed them with the same facility, from the same motives. They considered the vast conquests of Alexander as an inheritance destitute of a master, and which prudence obliged them to secure for themselves, in as large portions as possible, without any apprehensions of being reproached as usurpers, for the acquisition of countries gained by the victories of the Macedonians, but not the property of any particular person. This was the great motive of all the enterprises in which they engaged.

a Seleucus, as we formerly observed, was master of all the countries between the Euphrates and the Indus, and was desirous of acquiring those that lay beyond the latter of those rivers. In order, therefore, to improve the favourable conjuncture of his union, in point of interest, with Ptolemy, Cassander, and Lysimachus, and at a time when the forces of Antigonus were divided, and Demetrius was employed in the siege of Rhodes and in awing the republics of Greece, and while Antigonus himself was only intent upon becoming master of Syria and Phoenicia, and attacking Ptolemy even in Egypt itself: Seleucus, therefore, thought it incumbent on him to take advantage of this diversion, which weakened the only enemy he had to fear, for carrying his arms against the people of India, who were included in his lot by the general partition, and whom he hoped it would be very practicable for him to subdue by a sudden irruption, altogether unexpected by king Sandrocotta. This person was an Indian of very mean extraction, who, under the specious pretext of delivering his country from the tyranny of foreigners, had raised an army, and augmented it so well, by degrees, that he found means to drive the Macedonians out of all the provinces of India, which Alexander had conquered, and to establish himself in them, while the successors of that monarch were engaged in mutual wars with each other. Seleucus passed the Indus, in order to regain those provinces ; but, when he found that Sandrocotta had rendered himself absolute master of all India, and had likewise an army of 600,000 men, with a prodigious number of elephants, he did not judge it prudent to attack so potent a prince, but entered into a treaty with him, by which he agreed to renounce all his pretensions to that country, provided Sandrocotta

a A. M. 3601. Ant. J. C. 303.

would furnish him with 500 elephants; upon which terms a peace was concluded. This was the final result of Alexander's Indian conquests! This the fruit of so much bloodshed, to gratify the frantic ambition of one prince! Seleucus, shortly after, led his troops into the west against Antigonus, as I shall soon observe. The absolute necessity he was under of engaging in this war was one of his strongest inducements for concluding so sudden a peace with the Indian prince.

a The Athenians, at the same time, called in Demetrius, to assist them against Cassander, who was besieging their city. He accordingly set sail with 330 gallies, and a great body of foot; and not only drove Cassander out of Attica, but pursued him as far as Thermopyla, where he defeated him, and made himself master of Heraclea, which surrendered voluntarily. He also admitted into his service 6000 Macedonians, who came over to his side.

When he returned to Athens, the inhabitants of that city, though they had already lavished upon him all the honours they were able to invent, had recourse to new flatteries, that outdid the former.-They lodged him in the back part of the temple of Minerva, called Parthenon; but even this place, which had so much sanctity ascribed to it by the people, and was the mansion of a virgin-goddess, he did not scruple to profane by the most infamous debaucheries. His courtesans were there treated with more honour than the goddess herself, and were the only divinities he adored. He even caused altars to be erected to them by the Athenians, whom he called abject wretches, for their mean compliance, and creatures born only for slavery; so much was even this prince shocked at such despicable adulation, as Tacitus observed with respect to Tiberius c.

Democles, surnamed the Fair, and of a very tender age, threw himself, in order to elude the violence of Demetrius, into a vessel of boiling water, prepared for a bath, and there lost his life, choosing rather to die than violate his modesty. The Athenians, to appease the resentment of Demetrius, who was extremely offended at a decree they had published, with relation to him, issued a new one, importing. "That

it was ordered and adjudged, by the people of Athens that, “whatever Demetrius might think fit to command should "be considered as sacred in regard to the gods, and just with regard to men." Is it possible to believe, that flattery

a Diod: 1. xx. p. 825-828. Plut. in Demetr. p. 899.

b Athen. I. vi. p. 253.

c Memoriæ proditur, Tiberium, quoties curia egrederetur, Græcis verbis in hunc modum eloqui solitum:"O homines ad servitutem paratos !" Scilicet etiam ilium, qui libertatem publicam nollet, tam project servientium patientiæ ta debat. Tarit. Annal. I. ii. c. 65.

and servitude could be carried to such an excess of baseness, extravagance, and irreligion!

Demetrius, after these procedings, entered Peloponnesus, and took from Ptolemy, who had rendered himself powerful in that country, the cities of Sicyon, Corinth, and several others where he had garrisons: and, as he happened to be at Argos at the grand festival in honour of Juno, he was de sirous of celebrating it, by proposing prizes, and presiding in person among the Greeks. In order to solemnize it more effectually, he espoused, on that day, Deidamia, the daughter of Æacides, king of the Molossians, and sister of Pyrrhus.

a The states of Greece being assembled in the isthmus, and curiosity having drawn a vast number of people from all parts, Demetrius was proclaimed general of all the Greeks, as Philip and Alexander had been before him; to whom he thought himself abundantly superior, so much was he intoxicated with the success of his arms, and the flattery lavished upon him.

When he was about to depart from Peloponnesus for Athens, he wrote to the inhabitants of that city, that he intended, upon his arrival among them, to be initiated in the greater and lesser mysteries at the same time. This had never been permitted before, for it was necessary to observe certain intervals, it being lawful to celebrate the lesser mysteries only in the month of March and the greater in that of October. In order, therefore, to obviate this inconvenience, and satisfy so religious a prince, it was ordered, that the then present month of May should be deemed the month of March, and afterwards that of October; and Demetrius, by this rare invention, was duly initiated, without infringing the customs and ceremonials prescribed by the law.

But, of all the abuses committed at Athens, that which most afflicted and mortified the inhabitants was an order issued by Demetrius, for immediately furnishing the sum of 250 talents; and, when this money had been collected with.out the least delay or abatement, the prince, the moment he saw it amassed together, ordered it to be given to Lamia, and the other courtesans in her company, for washes and paint. The Athenians were more offended at the indignity than the loss, and resented the application of that sum to a greater degree than their contribution of it.

Lamia, as if this terrible expense had not been sufficient, being desirous to regale Demetrius at a feast, extorted money from several of the richest Athenians by her own private

a Plut. in Demetr. p. 900.

There are various opinions with relation to the months in which these mys teries were celebrated.

authority. The entertainment cost immense sums, and gave birth to a very ingenious pleasantry of a comic poet, who said, that Lamia was a true helepolis. We have already shown, that the helepolis was a machine invented by Demetrius, for attacking and taking towns.

a Cassander, finding himself vigorously pressed by Demetrius, and not being able to obtain a peace without submitting entirely to the discretion of Antigonus, agreed with Lysimachus to send ambassadors to Seleucus and Ptolemy, to represent to them the situation to which they were reduced. The conduct of Antigonus made it evident that he had no less in view than to dispossess all the other successors of Alexander, and usurp the whole empire to himself; and that it was time to form a strict alliance with each other, to humble this exorbitant power. They were likewise offended, and Lysimachus in particular, at the contemptible manner in which Demetrius permitted people to treat the other kings in their conversation at his table, appropriating the regal title to himself and his father; whereas Ptolemy, according to his flatterers, was no more than the captain of a ship, Seleucus a commander of elephants, and Lysimachus a treasurer. A confederacy was therefore formed by these four kings; after which they hastened into Assyria, to make preparations for this new war.

The first operations of it were commenced at the Hellespont. Cassander and Lysimachus having judged it expedient that the former should continue in Europe, to defend it against Demetrius, and that the latter should invade the provinces of Antigonus, in Asia, with as many troops as could be drawn out of their two kingdoms, without leaving them too destitute of forces. Lysimachus executed his part conformably to the agreement, passed the Hellespont with a fine army, and, either by treaty or force, reduced Phrygia, Lydia, Lycaonia, and most of the territories between the Propontis and the river Mæander.

Antigonus was then at Antigonia, which he had lately built in Upper Syria, and where he was employed in celebrating the solemn games he had there established. This news, with that of several other revolts, transmitted to him at the same time, caused him immediately to quit his games. He accordingly dismissed the assembly upon the spot, and made preparations for advancing against the enemy. When all his troops were drawn together, he marched with the utmost expedition over mount Taurus, and entered Cilicia, where he took out of the public treasury of Quinda, a city of that province, as much money as he wanted, and then

a A. M. 3702. Ant. J. C. 30. Diod. I. xx. p. 830-836. Plat. in Demetr. p 899. Justin. 1. xv. c. 4.